Lies of the Haven: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Adventure (Faerie Warriors Book 1)

by J. A. Curtis

  “You’re super strong?”

  Palon shot a third arrow, and it landed a little outside the bullseye. “Destructively strong,” he said. “At first, everything seemed so fragile, so easily breakable. Plates, buildings, people. I was a danger to everyone around me.”

  “So Arius put you in charge of the crossbows?” Granted, the crossbow I held in my arms was sturdy enough, but if this kid was breaking buildings, then a crossbow would probably feel like paper in Palon’s strong hands.

  “I was surprised at first, too,” he admitted, “and terrified I would destroy our limited supply. But Arius knew that I needed to learn finesse, and the technicality required in handling a crossbow would give me the concentration I needed to control my strength. Arius believed I could learn how to control my ability. And I did... after a few crushed crossbows.”

  The final arrow I fired came closer to hitting Palon’s target. He handed me a fresh one filled with arrows, and I set the spent one aside. I shot my first arrow, and it flew high over my target. I adjusted my stance, lowered my bow, and fired a second one—missed again.

  I pointed the bow at the ground and huffed. “I probably wouldn’t want to face you in a sword fight.”

  Palon chuckled as he fired three more arrows in quick succession, each landing within an inch of each other. “You definitely wouldn’t. I am only allowed to fight certain people. I started out against Arius. Only he would allow himself to take the risk. I sent him off to Caelm many times at first. Now Thaya and I will occasionally cross swords, and on a rare occasion Jorgeral, but I keep sword fighting to a minimum. Too easy to overestimate the strength of others and hurt someone. I prefer crossbow.”

  “You are grateful to Arius.”

  “He saw my potential even when I couldn’t see it in myself. He trusted me, and that gave me the courage to try.”

  I raised my crossbow and fired another. The target continued to elude me. “What is my ability?”

  “Don’t know, it depends on who you are.” Palon fired his last arrow and set his crossbow down. He glanced behind him.

  “Arius is coming back,” he said. “Keep practicing.” He went to meet Arius.

  I tried firing another, but the crossbow bucked in my hands. Another arrow landed in the grass beyond the target. While they cut the rest of the grass around the manor short, for some reason, they allowed the grass around the crossbow pit to grow long. I felt sorry for whatever poor sap would retrieve the arrows. They would have to search for them hidden in the tall grass.

  “How is she doing?” I heard Arius ask.

  Palon kept his voice low. I sought to tune out the low rumble of their voices talking back and forth and focus on the target. But my mind kept trying to make out their words.

  Fine, empty the bow and then you can hear for yourself, I thought. I released the last two arrows without aiming. The first settled in the grass but the second arrow stuck in the high right corner of the poster. Well outside the target space, but at least I made contact.

  I threw my hands in the air, raising the crossbow above my head. “Yes! Did you guys see that?” I shouted as I spun to face them.

  When I took in their sober faces, I paused. Arius frowned and shook his head. Palon also said nothing, avoiding my gaze.

  I set the crossbow down on the hay bale. “I guess I’ll need more practice.”

  Palon muttered something like “that’s an understatement,” under his breath. Arius stepped up to me and handed me a black drawstring cloth bag about the size of a medium purse.

  “What’s this for?” I asked, taking the bag from him.

  “Rules of the crossbow pit. You fire the arrows—you retrieve the arrows.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes.”

  He should have told me that before I shot eleven arrows into the grass. I crumpled the bag between my palms and trudged over to the field beyond the targets.

  I ended up the poor sap today.

  “YOU DON’T KNOW VERY much about sword fighting, do you?”

  The question was innocent enough coming from the mouth of a ten-year-old boy standing over me. He had kicked me in the back of the legs and sent me tumbling forward onto my stomach. I held in a groan. After one blistering sunburn due to the two hours wandering around in the hot sun in search of arrows, I’d finally found them all. I had come inside and been able to eat some dinner when Arius had arrived and directed me back outside for some sword practice. This time, he took nothing for granted and paired me up with a kid named Veran, whose ability was to duplicate objects. He had no faerie guardian on his arm. Despite his young age, the boy was extremely good at fighting with a sword.

  “Perhaps you should practice some hand-to-hand combat,” Veran suggested. “Sword fighting isn’t just about swinging a sword. It’s about using your body to your advantage.”

  Great, another thing to suck at. I got to my feet. This was the fifth time he had either disarmed me or brought me down. My body ached, and my skin burned.

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” The good attitude I was trying to fake wouldn’t last much longer. “I thought you were supposed to go easy on me.”

  “I am going easy on you. And I’m not even that good a swordsman. There are people a lot more skilled than me. You should see Arius.”

  Arius is sounding more and more like superman, I thought, more annoyed than awestruck. He certainly had everyone here believing it. And what was I doing? Jumping through all these ridiculous hoops just to get on his good side. Not that it was working.

  Veran shrugged. “You are untrained. I’ve been doing this since I could pick up a sword. Should we try again?”

  This was impossible. Even if I wanted to learn how to use a sword, I’d never catch up to these kids.

  A roar sounded from the front of the house. “What was that?”

  He sheathed his sword. “A faerie guardian duel. But they usually don’t happen this close to the manor. Let’s go see.”

  Any excuse to stop my humiliation. I also sheathed my sword and followed Veran as he jogged across the field, circling the large building until we came around to the front.

  Thaya and Caelm stood across from each other, glaring. Thaya’s hands were clenched, and her eyes blazed. Caelm stood red faced, as if he were about to face down a charging bull. Between them, large and imposing, was Thaya’s woman warrior faerie guardian with a bow clutched in her hands. In front of Caelm stood a huge, snowy white monster with bat-like ears, a large leathery snout, and long gangling arms.

  The warrior woman lunged at the monster, using her feathered wings to lift herself. Caelm’s monster dove underneath the woman and stretched an arm upward, grabbing the flying woman’s ankle and flinging her away from the manor. The warrior woman caught most of the momentum with her wings and touched down on the ground, spinning back to face her opponent.

  Like an ape, the white shaggy monster pounded the ground with its fists and rushed forward. Thaya’s warrior woman raised her bow and swung it like a club at Caelm’s monster, knocking the beast to the side. The snow monster fell but scrambled to its feet and launched itself again at Thaya’s warrior woman.

  The warrior woman rose into the air to avoid the charge, twisted her body, and shot an arrow of light right into the beast’s shoulder. Both Caelm and the monster cried out at the same time and sank to the ground.

  “Is Caelm all right?” I asked.

  “Caelm isn’t a very good duelist. He rarely gets paired up with Thaya,” Veran said, uncertain. “Plus, they both seem pretty upset. There’s emotion in this fight. It must be spontaneous. They shouldn’t fight this close to the manor. And Caelm looks like he is about to fall. Duel or not, someone should probably break it up.”

  He was right. “Where’s Arius?”

  Veran’s brow furrowed as he regarded me. “I’ll go find him.”

  He jogged off to find Arius. I looked back to the fight. Thaya’s warrior woman landed right on top of Caelm’s monster, jolting it hard with her
giant feet. The monster didn’t fight back.

  Someone needed to do something. I looked around at the faeries that had gathered around me, but nobody moved to intervene. None of them would dare confront Thaya, I realized. Last night, I had learned that after Arius, she outranked everyone here.

  I bounced on the balls of my feet. Where was Arius?

  This is your responsibility, Mina. You can command Thaya to back down.

  The thought jolted me into action. I drew my sword and separated myself from the crowd of faeries as I rushed forward, stopping several feet from Thaya. Her massive woman pulled back on her bowstring and an arrow of light appeared, this time aimed at the monster’s back, right where its heart should be.

  “Stand down, Thaya. That’s an order,” I said.

  Thaya’s whole body stilled. Caelm’s monster shuddered under Thaya’s faerie guardian’s massive foot, and Caelm moaned.

  “You dare presume to give me an order?” Thaya’s voice was deathly soft.

  “If I am the queen or general, then I outrank you. Now stand down, soldier.”

  Thaya stuck out her arm, and her faerie guardian slipped back onto it in tattoo form. I began to breathe easier, a little shocked that had worked—until Thaya turned her icy cold glare on me.

  This was far from over.

  “You think you have the right to stand there and give me orders? You, who have no skills, no training—you don’t even know how to use that sword in your hand,” Thaya said.

  She came toward me, drawing her own sword. With a swipe of her arm, our swords clanged together, and Thaya sent my sword flying out of my hand across the well-kept lawn. Then, like a whip, she drew the tip of her sword across my cheek.

  Pain seared, and I staggered back, covering my wound with my hand. Blood seeped through my fingers and down into the gauntlet on my arm.

  “You are no leader, Mina. You know little, and you care even less about us, so stop pretending like you have any right to interfere.”

  More faeries were being drawn to the commotion, but none of them were getting involved. They just stood and watched. What was wrong with them? I might be their queen, or at the very least their commanding officer. Weren’t they going to defend me? I looked for Arius. If he were here, he would come to my aid.

  That’s when I saw him standing near the back of the group, his body tall and ramrod straight, his eyes ablaze. But he didn’t come forward. Didn’t offer to protect me. His eyes flicked from me to the sword. He must be crazy. I couldn’t stand up to Thaya with that sword. I had been losing to a ten-year-old five minutes earlier.

  I gritted my teeth. These kids didn’t care about me, they just wanted a show.

  My feet planted hard in the ground, I lunged forward, and body checked Thaya, catching her off guard and knocking her to the ground. I ran for my sword. At that moment, I was grateful for my many years of playing soccer. I gripped my sword out of the grass and spun back toward Thaya who was already coming to her feet.

  Great, this was great. I’d be chopped in half. I was going to be minced into little tiny pieces right here in front of everyone. Arius had never explained the whole falling versus ceasing to exist concept. Now I wished I had made that more of a priority. He had said there was one way to destroy a faerie for good. What was it?

  But I didn't even know if I was a faerie. What if this was all a huge mistake?

  Thaya lunged forward, her sword cutting into my sword arm and across my thigh. I gasped as the blade cut into me and the pain flared. And disappeared. Thaya growled and lashed out again, her sword cutting deeper into my exposed skin, but the pain again was fleeting. I looked over my body and saw no signs of the damage Thaya had just inflicted. What was going on? I hadn’t blocked one of Thaya’s attacks. I should have been on the ground begging for mercy. My eyes searched for Caelm. He had risen to his hands and knees. Our eyes met and he smiled. This time when Thaya swung her sword to attack, I raised mine to block.

  Clang. The two swords hit, and I felt my courage mount. I swung my sword to attack, and Thaya easily blocked and elbowed me hard in the face. My head spun, and I dropped to the ground, but the pain vanished in a second.

  I lay in the grass, Thaya standing over me. She raised her sword to chop me in half. The world spun, and I fell into a different moment, another time.

  Thaya’s sword came down, and I rolled at the last second, coming to my knees. With an experience I didn’t possess, I placed my sword on the exposed skin on the back of Thaya’s thighs and swiped hard. She cried out and collapsed onto the ground.

  I stood and placed my foot on her sword while I lifted the tip of mine to her throat. “Next time, don’t challenge me.”

  A collective sigh came from the group of faeries standing around. Arius worked his way to the front.

  “Mina, you can now order how she will be punished,” Arius said.

  I stared at him, then at the others waiting around. I saw the eagerness in their eyes. Punish her? They were the ones who needed to be punished for standing by and letting Thaya attack me. In fact, only one person in the whole group didn’t deserve punishment.

  “Where’s Caelm?” I kept the point of my sword at Thaya’s throat. She sucked large breaths, her muscles tense as she did her best to deal with the pain and loss of blood my deep cuts caused. More blood trickled down my sword, dribbling onto her neck and into the grass.

  “I’m here, my lady,” Caelm said. He came forward and stood before me.

  “You’re alright?”

  “Thanks to you, my lady.”

  I owed him just as much. “You can heal from a distance?”

  “Sometimes,” he said, “I’ve only tried it on sword cuts and light wounds.”

  “Thank you, Caelm, for helping me.” I glared at Arius and the others. “You were the only one here today who showed me any loyalty.”

  “You’re welcome, my lady.”

  I removed my sword from Thaya’s throat. “Now, heal Thaya, and then I want everyone to go back to whatever they were doing. Except you two.” I pointed at Thaya and Caelm, “No more fighting.”

  “Heal her, my lady?”

  “That’s an order, Caelm.”

  “Yes, my lady.” He moved forward to follow orders.

  With my sword still dripping blood, I stalked away from the group. I crossed the field in front of the manor and entered a small grove of trees. Not knowing where I was going, I kept walking to put distance between me and the faeries. I left the grove and came upon a small ravine. A boulder sat next to it, and I sat down, dropping my bloody sword to the ground.

  What had made everyone so welcoming one minute and so willing to sacrifice me the next? Just because these people acted like they needed me didn’t mean they had my back when it really counted.

  “Mina,” Arius said. He must have followed me. “You should have punished Thaya. You need to show that there are consequences to challenging your authority.”

  “Is there?” I said. “What about standing around like idiots when an innocent person is being attacked? Shouldn’t there be consequences for that, too? How can I punish her without punishing all of you?”

  “Thaya challenged your authority, and the faeries gave you the chance to prove yourself. If I, or any of us, had intervened, it would have made you appear weak.”

  “So you just let Thaya cut me up even though you know I’m no match for her.”

  “There was nothing I could do.”

  Like I believed that. “Caelm helped.”

  “Caelm was the only one able to help. Because you stood up for him, only he could help without making you appear weak.”

  My jaw clenched. These faerie soldier rules were demented.

  Arius sighed. “You don’t understand our ways,” he said. “As a faerie soldier, as a leader, there are certain expectations. Proving and then protecting your authority is one of those. You outrank me, whoever you are. I cannot help you. I cannot protect you from this.”

  I turned to look at him
in the setting sunlight. Through the shadows playing on his face, I saw condescension reflected in those dark eyes, and I understood. He was the soldier acting on the soldier’s code, and I was just the naïve girl throwing a fit. I drew off the gauntlets on my arms and dropped them next to my sword.

  “You’re right, Arius. I figured you were someone I could trust. Turns out I was wrong.”

  Arius stepped forward, frustration filling his face. “Mina—”

  I turned away. “Leave me. That’s an order.”

  Silence. Arius didn’t move at first, but then I heard the grind of his heel on gravel and the crunch of twigs under his feet as he walked away. I sat on a boulder and watched the color in the sky fade to orange. The tension in my shoulders and arms began to dissipate, and my pounding heart began to calm.

  Why was I here? What did I owe these people? Arius had soldier drilled into him to the point he couldn’t see past it to anything else. He was only a teenager. I was only a teenager. I should be hanging out with friends, going to school, and having fun at parties on the weekend—not taking down another kid in battle to establish my military dominance.

  “Having a bad day?” A voice came from behind me, causing me to jump up from my rock. Dramian stood less than three feet from me.

  My eyes flicked to my sword, but I thought better of it. Winning against Thaya felt like a miracle. I wouldn’t tempt fate twice by challenging Dramian. “What do you want?”

  Dramian appeared relaxed. He smiled at me. “Well, I had come to kidnap you. You know, while my soldiers attacked Arius and his followers, I planned on sneaking in and abducting you right out from under their noses. But I hadn’t expected to find you so alone and unguarded. I’m not sure if I am more surprised or offended that Arius would think so little of my capabilities.”

  He took a step toward me, and I took a step back. The dragon on his arm began to ripple.

  “In fact, I will give you a choice. Come with me now, and I’ll call off the attack. No faeries will fall. Or you can run, scream, call attention to yourself, draw out Arius and his followers, and my soldiers will attack, faeries will fall, and chances are, I will still catch you and whisk you away before Arius can get to you.”